Historically it's been very hard to represent a 3D planet on a 2D map. The Mercator projection was created as a way around this, but as the clever people at thetruesize.com show, all may not be as it seems...

1.Firstly, you can see how the size of the US drastically changes as you move it north or south.

Some countries are significantly larger than they should be thanks to the Mercator projection, while others – anything near the equator – are definitely getting a bum deal. The US falls somewhere in the middle.

On a standard map it's dwarfed by Canada, but here you can see that moving it to where Canada is located makes it seem even more prominent than it already is.

Note: This post will frequently use the USA as shorthand for the 48 contiguous states. We love Hawaii and Alaska, honest – it's just easier to fit things in this way. Alaska is HUGE. Or is it...

2.And if Canada is moved down to where the US is, it's clear that they aren't as dissimilar in size as most people think.

6.Or, at least, not THIS much difference.

7.Now onto a continent that usually takes up the whole of the bottom of a map – Antarctica.

The Mercator projection really goes to shit when it comes to land masses that cover the poles. It's usually impossible to tell how big Antarctica really is just from looking at a map, but using this tool we can see it's roughly the size of western Africa. So now you know.

8.This map shows how big the USA is compared with Europe, but it also does something else rather interesting...